Tesla dug ditches to live as word spread of his unusual talents and eventually offers came in for Tesla to improve the current arc lighting methods. Though not the chance he had hoped for, investors agreed to fund the Tesla Electric Light Company and immediately he went to work to invent an arc lamp that would be beautiful and efficient. Tesla was never concerned with his own financial gain and sadly never reaped the monetary benefits of his inventions.
Mr. A.K. Brown of the Westrn Union Company helped change Tesla’s luck by agreeing to fund his AC motor. In a small lab just blocks from Edison’s he quickly developed all the components for AC power generation and transmission that are universally used throughout the world today.
In the last two months of 1887, Tesla filed for seven U.S. Patents in the fields of polyphase AC motors and power transmissions. The ideas were so far ahead of their time that the patents were issued without any challenge. Along with the telephone, Tesla’s AC patents became the most valuable patents in history.
George Westinghouse, inventor of the railroad air-brake, was looking for the missing link in long-distance power transmission. He offered Tesla $60,000 for his patents which included $5,000 cash, 150 shares of stock in the Westinghouse Corporation, and royalties of $2.50 per horsepower of electrical capacity sold. Tesla never concerned about monetary gain, and having more inventions in his mind agreed and spent half of his new-found wealth on a new laboratory.
Unknown at the time, Tesla’s technology would start a full-fledged industrial war. The future of development in America was on the line, on one side was Edison and his DC methods, on the other Westinghouse and AC technology. Edison knowing DC power was unable to match Tesla’s AC production began widespread smear campaigns against AC power, Westinghouse, and of course Tesla. On August 6, 1890 Edison employed a professor names Harold Brown to illegally purchase a used Westinghouse generator to be used in New York’s first electric chair execution of convicted ax-murdered William Kemmler. All spectators agreed, “it was awful spectacle much worse than any hanging.” Professor Brown continued the smear campaign by giving public speeches where he would use AC power to kill horses and dogs on stage in front of shocked onlookers.
Despite Edison’s persistent negative attempts, good things were on the horizon for Westinghouse and Tesla. The Westinghouse Corporation won the bid to illuminate The Chicago World’s Fair which would be the first all-electric fair in history. The fair was also dubbed The Columbian Exposition in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus discovering America. Up against the newly formed General Electric Company that had formed after taking over Edison’s company, Westinghouse undercut GE’s million dollar bid by half. GE relied on a copper wire based DC system, where Westinghouse would implement more cost-effective AC generation.
This educational article was written by Matthew Jorn
No comments:
Post a Comment